EDIT: FOR A MORE ACCURATE ANALYSIS ON THE QUALITY SECTION OF THE REVIEW, PLEASE VISIT THE QUALITY SECTION HERE, IT IS NOW CHANGED FOR A BETTER UNDERSTANDING. THANKS!
This is my review for Eric Jones' new DVD available via KozmoMagic and your favorite magic dealer. I recently attended Eric's lecture (which totally rocked the boat) and he had a small table set up and was selling these DVD's. Being a good friend of Eric's, I had to pick one up. I have changed my formatting slightly so be on the lookout for that throughout this review. So without further adieu, Mirage et Trois!
What happened was this: The DVD began with Eric approaching a table in a restaurant with a few people gathered around the table. Then came a 3 and half minute performance by Eric of the entire routine start to finish with all of his little jokes and audience reactions. This was a LIVE performance in a real time table hopping gig in a REAL restaurant with REAL people (something we rarely get to see). Most of us who know Eric have only seen him either at a convention or lecture and the more common scenario, on YouTube, so it was really cool to see him actually approach a group of people and see them respond so affectionately to the entire routine.I wish I could say this one performance was worth the price of the DVD, but then you wouldn't learn any of the super cool and resepctable sleight of hand that Eric is laying out for us. Eric also has a very charming performing persona that I think we can all respect in proportion.
Quality: 5/5: To tell you the truth, there really wasn't much to say about the quality once I got the better disk. The camera wuality was perfect, just a little bit better than Penguin's (sorry guys). The lighting was also ver good so you can see the coins just perfectly and where everything is and where everything should be going etc. Normally in a coin magic DVD the lighting is either too much so you can't distinguish coins from one another, or too dark so you can't even see the coins. But this was perfect. Every single detail in the coins were clearly highlighted. I noticed the sound had a slight problem, but not enough to take any stars away. I found that Eric talks slightly softer than some other people in DVDs, so I had to turn the volume up just a little bit in one or two places, but it really didn't get in the way of my learning experience because Eric rocks at teaching so he went over everything again, so if I missed something, he recapped and I got it. But other than that, the quality was perfect! Nice work Kozmo!
The Layout: 5/5: This DVD had something that not a lot of people do and I was glad to see this again in a DVD... A GOOD LAYOUT. I hate when I need to scroll through menus and moving the little hard to see arrows up and down and squinting at tiny little gothic texts etc. I was able to "Play All" and watch the DVD all the way through (with exception of the "Extras" menu option) They set this DVD up with the trailer, live performance, then in each effect (Out with three, S.V.C.A, and KKK), a studio performance and explanation and then another performance and repetition of each effect, of course moving on to the following effect. So this was a very straight forward DVD project that got the point across and made the customer want to come back for more!
Explanation: 6/5: So now I will be teaching you each effect. First, start off with 3 coins...ok, I won't be teaching these effects. But it had been said many many times (including at the lecture), that Eric's explanations are even better than seeing the effect the first time (or something like that) and it has the world's truth to it. I said in a previous review, particularly speaking Joshua Jay's MAGIC: The complete course, that the explanations in that DVD were the best I have ever seen and nobody will ever beat them.Well, sorry Josh, but Eric set those standards up to crazy heights! I have never seen such intricate focus and direction to detail as Eric has put on this DVD. The explanations for each effect runs aprox. 15 minutes and that is longer than some of the effects out on the market today. I'm sure if anybody else tried to teach these effects, they would end up with a 4, mayne 5 minute tutorial that doesen't go into any kind of detail. I also love how Eric covers basicaly every angle imaginable in these routines, making something that people might worry about, into something the performer looks forward to since the angles are all covered! So let's recap. lengthy explanations, attention to detail and subtlety, and adding on top of that, over the shoulder and multi-angle explanations and performances. I can't begin to thank you enough Eric for doing such a marvelous job on this part of the DVD.
I will now start to talk about each effect in turn and what I particularly love about each one and the strenghts and weaknesses about each effect.
Out With Three: 5/5: I have always hated productions and vanishes that start right away but I will be more than happy to make an exception and actually USE this effect. This routine really makes sense and as the advertisement says, really IS a comical production of your three coins and while watching this DVD, actually made me laugh! Basicaly what goes down is the production of 3 coins but the third one miraculously vanishes without a trace just as it appears. The magician then produces the third coin once again but finds that one of the other 2 coins vanishes just as the third one appears. This is repeated with a few lines and the third coin apparently appears, but is found to be actually in the spread of 2 coins at your fingertips. I loved how clean this routine looked throughout the entire effect. It is something that you can learn after about 20 minutes of solid practice and then get down. It has comedy, visuality, and of course clean hand actions which is of course always to have. You don't just make 3 coins appear which many other routines have, you actually experience magic that looks like magic! On top of that, you are using productions, vanishes, and in a way,coins across, one of my most favorite coin plots so that works out great!
S.V.C.A (Spectator's Visible Coins Across): 5/5: Before I get any questions which have come up in the same place, No, I have no idea if this is the same effect taught on the "La Famigilia" DVD which Eric had a small part in. Back to the review. This effect is a really magical "ThreeFly" by Jonathan Townsend and Chris Kenner. The first coin goes from one hand to the other in the most visual and respectable way imaginable. you are not doing this one effect really quickly and without any variation where the spectator's can't even see the coin go across. this is a good solid routine. Next one coin is put away and one of the two coins at the fingertips starts to VISUALLY melt away and appear at the empty fingertips of the other hand. Again the coin is put away and all you do is display one coin at the fingertips andjust by touching your elbo, the coin pops into view just as quickly as the same coin pops OUT of view at the fingertips! This is repeated once more and then again. The coins are retrived again and you go into KKK (of you wish). This routine REALLY makes sense though! The illusion is so powerful that anybody can understand what just happened and where you are going with it and why you are taking coins away. Eric also went the extra mile as to include patter lines for this effect that really compliment what is going on throughout the routine.Mad props to Eric for this one! It's going right into my act!
K.K.K (Three Klan Vanish): 4/5: Like I mentioned above, I am not the biggest fan of vanishes (in the context of David Roth's "Hanging coins" plot). Basically each coin is taken into the hand and vanishes completely without a trace and with the palms of your hands being shown each step of the way until the last coin vanishes and your hands are both shown undeniably empty to the audience. I loved the cleanliness of this effect, however you will be left in a somewhat awkward position. If that bothers you, then Eric gives you advice in cleanup and a couple tips on additional handlings. This one looks just as good as the other two though. However, one thing in particular that I absolutely loved was vanish of the first coin. When I first saw the performance of this one I couldv'e sworn that Eric was using some kind of crazy sleeving technique or gimmick because of how realistic this looks. It immedietly went right into my hanging coins effect and I'm sure that if you don't use this effect for whatever crazy reason, it will go right into your's as well.
Overall and closing thoughts: 5/5: Overall I am really glad I decided to finally pick this up and support my friend for putting his work out into the world. If you have not already seen this DVD or the trailer yet, I reccomend you head on over to Kozmo Magic or your favorite magic dealer and take a nice long look at it. These routines can all go into any part of your repertoir and are excellent for those times in walkaround or table hopping when a waiter comes by with the check or food, because you can pick it all up and leave and seem completely conspicuous. This is such a flexible routine and I have even made exceptions (something I rarely do) and will start performing this soon. It has been said on the magic cafe that you get more for your money out of this one DVD than any other DVD out there today. I want to finally thank Eric for this DVD and for a phenomenal lecture. Thanks!
Time to vanish,
-Mark Tirone
This is my review for Eric Jones' new DVD available via KozmoMagic and your favorite magic dealer. I recently attended Eric's lecture (which totally rocked the boat) and he had a small table set up and was selling these DVD's. Being a good friend of Eric's, I had to pick one up. I have changed my formatting slightly so be on the lookout for that throughout this review. So without further adieu, Mirage et Trois!
What happened was this: The DVD began with Eric approaching a table in a restaurant with a few people gathered around the table. Then came a 3 and half minute performance by Eric of the entire routine start to finish with all of his little jokes and audience reactions. This was a LIVE performance in a real time table hopping gig in a REAL restaurant with REAL people (something we rarely get to see). Most of us who know Eric have only seen him either at a convention or lecture and the more common scenario, on YouTube, so it was really cool to see him actually approach a group of people and see them respond so affectionately to the entire routine.I wish I could say this one performance was worth the price of the DVD, but then you wouldn't learn any of the super cool and resepctable sleight of hand that Eric is laying out for us. Eric also has a very charming performing persona that I think we can all respect in proportion.
Quality: 5/5: To tell you the truth, there really wasn't much to say about the quality once I got the better disk. The camera wuality was perfect, just a little bit better than Penguin's (sorry guys). The lighting was also ver good so you can see the coins just perfectly and where everything is and where everything should be going etc. Normally in a coin magic DVD the lighting is either too much so you can't distinguish coins from one another, or too dark so you can't even see the coins. But this was perfect. Every single detail in the coins were clearly highlighted. I noticed the sound had a slight problem, but not enough to take any stars away. I found that Eric talks slightly softer than some other people in DVDs, so I had to turn the volume up just a little bit in one or two places, but it really didn't get in the way of my learning experience because Eric rocks at teaching so he went over everything again, so if I missed something, he recapped and I got it. But other than that, the quality was perfect! Nice work Kozmo!
The Layout: 5/5: This DVD had something that not a lot of people do and I was glad to see this again in a DVD... A GOOD LAYOUT. I hate when I need to scroll through menus and moving the little hard to see arrows up and down and squinting at tiny little gothic texts etc. I was able to "Play All" and watch the DVD all the way through (with exception of the "Extras" menu option) They set this DVD up with the trailer, live performance, then in each effect (Out with three, S.V.C.A, and KKK), a studio performance and explanation and then another performance and repetition of each effect, of course moving on to the following effect. So this was a very straight forward DVD project that got the point across and made the customer want to come back for more!
Explanation: 6/5: So now I will be teaching you each effect. First, start off with 3 coins...ok, I won't be teaching these effects. But it had been said many many times (including at the lecture), that Eric's explanations are even better than seeing the effect the first time (or something like that) and it has the world's truth to it. I said in a previous review, particularly speaking Joshua Jay's MAGIC: The complete course, that the explanations in that DVD were the best I have ever seen and nobody will ever beat them.Well, sorry Josh, but Eric set those standards up to crazy heights! I have never seen such intricate focus and direction to detail as Eric has put on this DVD. The explanations for each effect runs aprox. 15 minutes and that is longer than some of the effects out on the market today. I'm sure if anybody else tried to teach these effects, they would end up with a 4, mayne 5 minute tutorial that doesen't go into any kind of detail. I also love how Eric covers basicaly every angle imaginable in these routines, making something that people might worry about, into something the performer looks forward to since the angles are all covered! So let's recap. lengthy explanations, attention to detail and subtlety, and adding on top of that, over the shoulder and multi-angle explanations and performances. I can't begin to thank you enough Eric for doing such a marvelous job on this part of the DVD.
I will now start to talk about each effect in turn and what I particularly love about each one and the strenghts and weaknesses about each effect.
Out With Three: 5/5: I have always hated productions and vanishes that start right away but I will be more than happy to make an exception and actually USE this effect. This routine really makes sense and as the advertisement says, really IS a comical production of your three coins and while watching this DVD, actually made me laugh! Basicaly what goes down is the production of 3 coins but the third one miraculously vanishes without a trace just as it appears. The magician then produces the third coin once again but finds that one of the other 2 coins vanishes just as the third one appears. This is repeated with a few lines and the third coin apparently appears, but is found to be actually in the spread of 2 coins at your fingertips. I loved how clean this routine looked throughout the entire effect. It is something that you can learn after about 20 minutes of solid practice and then get down. It has comedy, visuality, and of course clean hand actions which is of course always to have. You don't just make 3 coins appear which many other routines have, you actually experience magic that looks like magic! On top of that, you are using productions, vanishes, and in a way,coins across, one of my most favorite coin plots so that works out great!
S.V.C.A (Spectator's Visible Coins Across): 5/5: Before I get any questions which have come up in the same place, No, I have no idea if this is the same effect taught on the "La Famigilia" DVD which Eric had a small part in. Back to the review. This effect is a really magical "ThreeFly" by Jonathan Townsend and Chris Kenner. The first coin goes from one hand to the other in the most visual and respectable way imaginable. you are not doing this one effect really quickly and without any variation where the spectator's can't even see the coin go across. this is a good solid routine. Next one coin is put away and one of the two coins at the fingertips starts to VISUALLY melt away and appear at the empty fingertips of the other hand. Again the coin is put away and all you do is display one coin at the fingertips andjust by touching your elbo, the coin pops into view just as quickly as the same coin pops OUT of view at the fingertips! This is repeated once more and then again. The coins are retrived again and you go into KKK (of you wish). This routine REALLY makes sense though! The illusion is so powerful that anybody can understand what just happened and where you are going with it and why you are taking coins away. Eric also went the extra mile as to include patter lines for this effect that really compliment what is going on throughout the routine.Mad props to Eric for this one! It's going right into my act!
K.K.K (Three Klan Vanish): 4/5: Like I mentioned above, I am not the biggest fan of vanishes (in the context of David Roth's "Hanging coins" plot). Basically each coin is taken into the hand and vanishes completely without a trace and with the palms of your hands being shown each step of the way until the last coin vanishes and your hands are both shown undeniably empty to the audience. I loved the cleanliness of this effect, however you will be left in a somewhat awkward position. If that bothers you, then Eric gives you advice in cleanup and a couple tips on additional handlings. This one looks just as good as the other two though. However, one thing in particular that I absolutely loved was vanish of the first coin. When I first saw the performance of this one I couldv'e sworn that Eric was using some kind of crazy sleeving technique or gimmick because of how realistic this looks. It immedietly went right into my hanging coins effect and I'm sure that if you don't use this effect for whatever crazy reason, it will go right into your's as well.
Overall and closing thoughts: 5/5: Overall I am really glad I decided to finally pick this up and support my friend for putting his work out into the world. If you have not already seen this DVD or the trailer yet, I reccomend you head on over to Kozmo Magic or your favorite magic dealer and take a nice long look at it. These routines can all go into any part of your repertoir and are excellent for those times in walkaround or table hopping when a waiter comes by with the check or food, because you can pick it all up and leave and seem completely conspicuous. This is such a flexible routine and I have even made exceptions (something I rarely do) and will start performing this soon. It has been said on the magic cafe that you get more for your money out of this one DVD than any other DVD out there today. I want to finally thank Eric for this DVD and for a phenomenal lecture. Thanks!
Time to vanish,
-Mark Tirone
